Life in Paris: from au pairing to galleries, from the language barriers to the Eiffel Tower!

Wednesday, 16 February 2011

J'ai arrivé! :)

"Mon dieu il fait si froid que mes dents sont la danse!"

The guy next to me attempts a smile while his teeth gently chatter against each other. We are squashed in the bus heading towards Charles de Gaulle Airport after having been herded from the warmth of the plane like sheep.

"Je suis d'accord" is all I can muster to say to my airport aqquaintance before burying my face back into my scarf quickly.

It was cold but not in the depths of my coat, where it occured to me that it would be highly embarassing if I could not remember the face of the man who was picking me up from the airport. And the harder I tried to picture it, the more the face blurried infront of me!

My airport aquaintance felt my aniexty and after a game of '20 Questions' I had forgotten the worry entirely. We parted ways after collecting our suitcases and I set off to the exit point where I hoped I would find Stephane, the father of the children I was looking after, with I hoped, a car with a boot large enough for my suitcase to fit in!

All these worries I had conjured up during the build up to this moment were short lived; I received a 'Texto' from my lift, of which I had to obtain a translation for from a Taxi Driver as I'm not well-rehearsed in 'shorthand-french-text-speak', saying:

"No problem, I'm in the wrong place :) The girls are eager to meet you! Just stay were you are I'm coming!"

And that was that. 15 minutes later I had spotted a worried man in a car with two girls in the back waving frantically at me! And within moments of that, I was sat in the car discussing snowmen with the girls.

Stephane seemingly wasn't having much luck today - We got stuck inbetween two barriers at the airport for having lost his ticket, he then fell out of car and lost his shoe simultaneously when trying to find help! Meanwhile, during this episode we had created a rather large audience and a long queue of traffic behind us! Who, helpfully, were honking their horns and let out such a roar of laughter as Stephane freed his shoe from the crack in the pavement!

Finally we were on track to the house and all he had to say was:

"On the radio, my horoscope today was: 'Fishes, don't go out today...' And what did I say to you Gabrielle?"